Fighting

Arcade, Mega Drive / Genesis, Nintendo, Others, Sega, SNES + Super Famicom

Mortal Kombat 3 [Arcade – Beta]

U64 Staff & Contributors
05-11-2009
8 Comments

Mortal Kombat 3 is the third game in the Mortal Kombat fighting game series, released in arcades in 1995. It was updated into Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 in arcade and home consoles, and later Mortal Kombat Trilogy home consoles only. Mortal Kombat 3 has been released for DOS, Game Boy, Game Gear, Genesis, Master System, PlayStation, Super NES and Windows. [Info from Wikipedia]

From the Mortal Kombat Secrets website we can read about many differences in the beta builds of the game, such as early character select screen, a removed red carpet in “The Bank” stage and a removed sub-boss with two big hammers. Sektor’s original name was “ketchup”, Cyrax’s original names were “mustard” and even “Robocop” at one point, Sindel was known as “Muchacha” and Kabal’s working name was “Sandman”.

Kurtis Stryker was supposed to appear in MK1 but it was removed, then in MK2 but it was changed into Jax. Only in MK3 Kurtis Stryker made its final appearance in the series. You can find out more about the MK3 beta at Mortal Kombat Secrets!

Images: 

Arcade, Mega Drive / Genesis, Nintendo, Others, Sega, SNES + Super Famicom

Mortal Kombat 2 (II) [Arcade – Beta]

U64 Staff & Contributors
31-10-2009
1 Comment

Mortal Kombat II is a 1993 arcade game and the second title in the Mortal Kombat fighting game series. Due to memory limitations for the title two characters from the original Mortal Kombat, Sonya Blade and Kano were excluded, reasoned by Boon as them being the least-picked characters in the original game, and the development team’s desire to introduce more new characters into the game. [Info from Wikipedia]

On the Mortal Kombat Secrets website there are many interesting concept arts and screenshots from the early development of the game, in wich we can notice some removed characters as Kintaro and a female kick-boxer. Also a couple of beta images for Jax, Johnny Cage and Baraka shown their original designs and we found out that a Blade Spin Special Move was removed from Baraka, because it was too powerful. You can check the original article on MKS for more info!

Images: 

Nintendo, SNES + Super Famicom

Street Fighter Alpha 2 [SNES – Beta?]

monokoma
28-09-2009
8 Comments

Street Fighter Alpha 2 (also known as Street Fighter Zero 2) is a 1996 fighting game originally released for the CPS II arcade hardware by Capcom, and later ported to the SNES. Israel has found some beta SFA2 screens for the SNES/SFC version. These were published in the “Club Nintendo” magazine in Mexico.

According to the magazine, SFZ2 was going to include “an special chip to aid in data an sprite processing to make the game more fluid”. The description matches Nintendo’s SA-1 chip but there are no confirmations if it was going to be an SA-1 game.

There is some evidence that it could have been the case, thought:

1. The characters seem to be bigger in the beta, at least in the Rolent vs Vega shot. In the Sakura vs Sakura shot you can tell by the size of her thighs.

2. In the final build, the shadows flickered while in the beta they don’t (both can be seen in the shots). Why is this relevant? In the finalized game the flicker doesn’t look good. Why didn’t they just leave them like in the beta?

Israel thinks that they were indeed aiming towards a SA-1 cartridge but late in the development cycle they switched to a SA-1 + S-DD1 because of space constrains and maybe in the last few weeks decided to settle for a S-DD1 only cart due to costs concerns.

The screenshots were published in August 1996 so that means the the screenshots were taken in June or July. SFA2 was released in November so it must have gone gold in October at least.

Some differences noticed in the screenshots:

  • The game used to have a custom font for the character names. This was changed to a default SNES font.
  • Win icons were red (Sakura vs Sakura screenshot)
  • Shadows didn’t flicker, both are visible in the screenshots.
  • Characters seem to be a little bigger than their final iterations.

Thanks to Israel for the contribution!

Images: 

Arcade, Microsoft, Others, Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony, Xbox 360

The King of Fighters XII [Unused Characters]

U64 Staff & Contributors
11-09-2009
No Comments

The King of Fighters XII (KOF XII) is the latest installment of the fighting games series developed by SNK Playmore. The game was released in Japan in April 2009 for arcades with an home versions for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3  in July 28 of the same year. Due to the time the developers took to make the sprites, there are only 20 playable characters (the lowest number of characters ever had in a game from the series) but many more unused ones were created in concepts during the development. [Info from Wikipedia] In the gallery below you can check some of these lost fighters!

Also, Mr. Lip Buster from the Ignition Entertainment Forum has found the names of more unused / removed characters in the game’s code: Vice, Hwa, Takuma, a boss, Dark/Orochi(?) Ash, Mai, King, Yuri, Classic Iori, and Billy were all planned and not included. There are 7 more empty spots with no character at all. That’s a total of 17 characters gone from the final version, 10 that had made it to planning and 7 that never even made it to the data. tKoF XII was originally planned to be the conclusion of the Ash saga.

Images: 

Microsoft, Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony, Xbox 360

Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe [PS3 X360 – Beta / Unused Stuff]

U64 Staff & Contributors
09-07-2009
No Comments

Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe (also known as MK vs. DCU or MK vs. DC) is a crossover fighting game from Midway Games and Warner Bros. Games in the Mortal Kombat series, which was released on November 2008. Ed Boon later revealed via Twitter (June 23rd, 2009) that two new characters were developed for DLC, Quan Chi from Mortal Kombat and Harley Quinn from DC Universe. Boon also stated that these characters will not be released, due to issues surrounding Midway’s bankruptcy. [Info from Wikipedia]

Images:

MK-vs-DC-dlc-Quan-Chi

Also, FaIr_fIghTeR_ noticed many differences in the early videos of the game:

00:19 – Sub Zero does an attack that is almost similar to Jax’s headkick attack.
00:21 – Sub Zero has a different costume then in the final product.
00:32 – The graveyard stage has a big wall with two statues that give a green light.
00:36 – The freefall physics look horrible.

00:05 – Sonya has Batman’s fighting position.
00:19 – Scorpion has Batman’s fighting position.
00:38 – Flash does an uppercut move.
00:46 – Sub Zero’s ice has a sharpy form.
00:55 – Superman’s freeze breath gives a less detailed ice effect on the enemy.
01:06 – The Fatality cameras are further away from the performer and the screen doesn’t turn black in the background.

00:35 – Superman attacks slower then in the final product.
00:48 – Scorpion’s teleport attack sounds different.
01:16 – Superman chains two simple attacks into a promove. This isn’t possible in the final product.
01:44 – Scorpion does Batman’s footgrab attack.
02:50 – Flash leaves much more speed waves behind.
02:58 – Sonya’s bicycle kick voice sounds like a Japanese girl.
03:22 – The opponent who knocks you down in freefall lands softly, you won’t hear or see him land next to you.
03:57 – Superman’s promove circle is white instead of red/blue

Not only Superman’s Brutality is different, but there are quite a few interesting differences in here.

00:00 – There are no ragebars. There were no breakers or possible use of rage.
00:03 – The SUB ZERO WINS! looks different, it looks like this SUB ZERO WINS!
00:06 – There is no intro song when a new round starts.
00:18 – Superman’s laser is fat.
00:47 – The camera is different and the music is different to.
00:47 – Superman’s Brutality animation is ugly.
00:55 – You hear and see BRUTALITY! instead of HEROIC BRUTALITY!

Thanks a lot to FaIr_fIghTeR_ for the contribution!